Baja Florida

by Bob Morris

  “I started off being interested in museums and curating and art restoration,” she said. “But then I realized it would mean being cooped up in stuffy old places and I’d miss being on the water. So I guess I’m still trying to figure out everything.”

  She was pleasant and composed and, unlike too many people her age, not so self-absorbed that conversation with her became a one-sided event. She asked good questions. She listened. I liked her a lot.

  She was sitting by Mickey’s bed, the two of them talking, when I dropped in to say good-bye.

  “I don’t even know how to begin to thank you,” she said.

  “Aw shucks, ma’am, weren’t nothing. Just doing my job.”

  She looked at me.

  “What is your job, anyway?”

  “I grow palm trees.”

  “But he’s really a Zack of all trades,” Mickey said. “The palm trees, they’re just a front.”

  Jen smiled. She got up from her chair.

  “I’ll leave you two to chat,” she said.

  We watched her go.

  Mickey said, “She said she’d be staying here as long as I want her to.”

  “How are things going between you?”

  “Slow,” Mickey said. “There’s lots of holes to fill in.”

  “You’ll get there.”

  “Yeah,” Mickey said. “We will.”

  I sat down beside the bed. Neither one of us spoke for a while.

  Then Mickey said, “I was an asshole the other day. I really had it wrong.”

  “If I’d been in your place, I’d a probably had it wrong, too.”

  “Guess we see what we want to see. And sometimes it blinds us to what’s really there,” Mickey said. “Sorry I acted the way I did.”

  “No apology necessary,” I said. “It all worked out.”

  “Only because you’re a stubborn son of a bitch who went sneaking behind my back.”

  “I’ll put that on my résumé.”

  He looked at me.

  “I don’t know how to begin to thank you either.”

  “Aw shucks, mister, it weren’t…”

  “Shut the hell up,” Mickey said.

  We sat quietly for a while.

  “I don’t care what you say, I owe you, Zack. I owe you big time.”

  “You don’t owe me a thing, Mickey. You paid in advance. Long ago.”

  He stuck out his hand. I took it. I held on to it and it was a long time before I let it go.

  55

  On the evening of the full moon, we gathered outside Boggy’s place on top of the hill at the nursery. Just the four of us. It was past Shula’s bedtime and her eyes were droopy. She perked up after Boggy set fire to a pile of driftwood he had collected from the beach. Flames danced toward the sky.

  Boggy danced, too. It was something to behold.

  His skin was covered with oil that made him shine in the light of the fire. I asked him what kind of oil it was and he said, “Manatee fat.” I’m pretty sure he was joking.

  He wore his official Taino shaman outfit, which was little more than a leather jock strap. It showed a whole lot more of him than I really needed to see. Barbara, however, seemed riveted by the spectacle.

  “For someone so short,” she said, “he’s really quite…”

  “This is a sacred ritual,” I said. “You’re not supposed to gawk.”

  “I’m just saying…”

  “He’s a shaman. That’s like a priest. Don’t look down there,” I said. “Or you’ll go to Taino hell.”

  Boggy did his dance around the fire a few times. He lifted a gourd filled with one of his wretched concoctions. He said a few Taino words. He drank what ever was in the gourd. Then he danced some more.

  Shula clapped her hands. She was loving the show. And she seemed to understand that it was all for her.

  The gourd juice must have started taking effect because Boggy began to sing. Not a particularly catchy ditty, short on melody, but he sang loud and with feeling and that counted for something.

  Two pouches sat on a rock near the fire—one made out of leather and the other blue satin with a gold drawstring. Boggy opened the blue satin pouch and pulled out a conch shell. It was a massive conch shell, by far the largest one I had ever seen.

  I tried not to think of the conch shell I had used to kill Justin Hatchitt. But it was impossible to keep it out of my mind. It would always be there.

  Boggy held up the conch shell with both hands.

  “Cohobo!” he said. “Cohobo!”

  A hole had been cut into the spiny end of the conch shell and now Boggy brought it to his lips and blew. It began low, almost inaudible, like a hum from deep within. By the time it hit the height of the crescendo, it was like the whistle blaring on a freight train rolling around the bend.

  It scared Shula. She put her hands over her ears. But she didn’t cry.

  Boggy gave three long blasts on the conch trumpet. He set it down and walked over to where we sat.

  “That is how we call the zemis, little one,” he said to Shula. “And tonight they come to give you your name.”

  He took Shula from Barbara’s arms and made three more passes around the fire, dancing and chanting, holding Shula high above his head.

  Boggy motioned for Barbara and me to stand and join them by the fire. He returned Shula to Barbara’s arms. He picked up the leather pouch and held it in front of Shula.

  “This now belongs to you,” he said. “It contains three zemis. They will be your companions for all your days.”

  He opened the pouch and pulled out three of the carved objects he had found along the runway in Walker’s Cay. The first one he held up was oblong, about the size of his thumb, and if you looked hard you could make out what looked like large, round eyes and a scowling mouth.

  “This is Yúcahu, Supreme God and Spirit of the Sky. And this is his mother, Atabey,” said Boggy, holding up a second carving. It wore a scowl, too, and had a big, protruding belly. “Atabey is the mother of all things and the Goddess of Fertility.”

  “Whoa, hold on,” I said. “My daughter is six months old. She’s got a long way to go before she needs to know anything about fertility. Heck, I’m not even going to let her date until she’s twenty.”

  Boggy ignored me.

  “And this is Guabancex, Goddess of the Winds,” said Boggy, holding up the third carving. “See how her mouth is open? If it pleases her, she can create a gentle breeze. Or, if she is angry, she makes a hurricane.”

  “Or if she’s just slightly ticked off she breaks wind,” I said.

  Barbara jabbed me in the ribs.

  “Enough,” she said.

  Boggy returned the three carvings to the leather pouch. Barbara held it while he took Shula from her and danced around the fire again, whispering into Shula’s ear. Shula wore a solemn expression, one that I’d never seen on her before, the look of an old soul.

  They returned to where we stood and Boggy held Shula out to us.

  “I present to you…Cohibici,” he said.

  “Hello, Cohibici,” Barbara said.

  “Cohibici,” I said. “What does it mean?”

  Boggy said, “Is Taino for ‘precious shell.’”

  Barbara took Shula from Boggy, rocked her in her arms.

  “My little Cohibici. My precious little shell. I like it,” she said. “It’s pretty.”

  Shula was fading fast. Barbara said she better get her to bed. She gave Boggy a hug.

  “Thank you for that. It was wonderful, quite moving. I got goose bumps,” Barbara said. “It is good to know that our daughter will have spirits by her side to protect her.”

  After they were gone, Boggy and I sat by the fire. I studied the flames, lost in grim thought.

  “What bothers you, Zachary?”

  “Just trying to figure it all out.”

  “Ah,” Boggy said. “The work of us all.”

  “The whole thing with the conch shells. Me finding one where none was supposed to
be found. It just showed up. This beautiful shell that I forgot about and then it was there when I needed it. Only I used it for something ugly and horrible,” I said. “Then tonight, you blowing a conch shell to call the zemis. And my daughter, her Taino name—precious little shell.”

  “Yes, what is it, Zachary?”

  “Her name. Was that something you just pulled out of your hat?”

  Boggy touched his head. He looked at me.

  “I do not wear a hat, Zachary.”

  “You know what I mean, dammit. When did you decide what her Taino name was going to be?”

  “I did not decide. It was spoken to me.”

  “When?”

  “Many days ago.”

  “Before we left for the Bahamas?”

  “Oh yes, long before that.”

  “So when I found the conch shell and you said, ‘It bodes well that you found it,’ you meant because it related to my daughter’s Taino name. Not because I would use that shell to kill someone.”

  Boggy shrugged.

  “It meant what it meant,” he said.

  “A whole lot of coincidence,” I said.

  “And that troubles you, why?”

  “It troubles me because I don’t believe in coincidence.”

  “Perhaps then, it was no coincidence,” Boggy said.

  “But if it wasn’t coincidence, then that means it just happened. Only, it’s too weird, too coincidental, for all of it to just happen. Which means something caused it to happen. Some spirit, some force. That Yúcahu guy, or Atabey, or whoever, sitting up there in the sky.”

  “Yes, it would mean that.”

  “But see, that’s the thing,” I said. “I don’t believe in any of that either.”

  Boggy looked at me. He put a hand on my shoulder.

  “You need to work on it,” he said.

  56

  Mickey Ryser hung in there for almost three months, until the end of July. I didn’t make it back to Lady Cut Cay to visit him. We had made our peace and said our good-byes and I wanted him to have that time with his daughter.

  It was Jen who called with the news.

  “Yesterday at sunset,” she said. “He’d had a good day. He was weak, but we went out on Radiance and he was as happy as I had seen him. When we got back to the house, he rested for a while. And then we went out to watch the sunset on the upstairs porch. He had been telling me about the flash of green and how he had seen it several times from there on the island. Have you ever seen it, Zack?”

  “Once or twice.”

  “So, it’s real? He wasn’t just pulling my leg?”

  “Oh no, it’s real alright. When you see it, you’ll know it.”

  “Maybe someday,” she said. “Anyway, the sun went down, and it was just this orange speck on the water and he said, ‘There, there, do you see it?’ I squinted and squinted, but I didn’t see a thing. Then I turned and looked at him. He was gone.”

  57

  We waited a few weeks to throw Mickey’s wake. He was cremated in Nassau. And just before Labor Day, Jen set out from Lady Cut Cay aboard Radiance, bound for Miami. Curtis, Edwin, and Miss Rose accompanied her. Along the way, they tossed out some of Mickey’s ashes at some of his favorite spots, with a healthy dusting going into the Gulf Stream.

  We held the wake at Vizcaya Mansion, just like Mickey planned. He had set aside money to rent it for an evening, after it was closed to the public.

  The crowd that came to honor him filled the place and spilled out into the gardens. All kinds of people—business associates, bankers and lawyers, politicians of every stripe. Two former governors of Florida, the senior U.S. Senator, presidents of three universities. Mickey had been generous in spreading around his donations and the gratitude that evening was genuine.

  A lot of folks came down from Minorca Beach, part of the surf crowd who grew up with Mickey or used to hang out at his shop back in the day. There were charter boat captains from Key West, bartenders from South Beach, biker dudes from all over, models and musicians, artists and designers, and a few young women who represented the elite talent from Fort Lauderdale’s better strip clubs. Mickey got around.

  Some of my teammates with the Gators and the Dolphins were there. Coach Shula showed up, too. I let him hold his namesake.

  “She’s got my dimples,” he said.

  I didn’t argue. You never argued with the Coach.

  There was a ton of food, three bars, and two bands. One called themselves the Spam All-Stars and had an Afro-Cuban jazz groove going. The other one, the Kronics, played old rock ’n’ roll.

  About an hour into the evening, Jen Ryser welcomed everyone and read a poem she’d written to honor her father. I gave the eulogy and only had to stop twice to wipe my eyes, which I thought was pretty good, considering.

  Plenty of people stood up to tell favorite stories about Mickey. There were lots of laughs, lots of tears. The way it’s supposed to be.

  The ceremony ended with Edwin singing an a cappella version of “Redemption Song.” He sang it with his eyes closed. His voice was strong and true. When it was over the silence hung heavy. And then everyone headed for the bars.

  I fetched a chardonnay for Barbara, a beer for myself, and some water for Shula. We were sitting at a table in a side garden when Jen Ryser joined us.

  “Could I steal your husband for a few minutes?”

  “I certainly won’t press charges,” Barbara said.

  I walked with Jen behind the mansion down to the bay. Radiance was anchored out near the channel, its dinghy tied up at the mansion’s concrete dock.

  “I need to show you something,” Jen said.

  We hopped in the dinghy and she motored us out to Radiance. She stepped aboard and I followed her to the main salon. She gestured to the couch. I sat.

  A thick accordion file sat atop the coffee table. Beside it a slim manila folder.

  “For you,” she said, passing the accordion file to me.

  I flipped through the file. It contained Radiance’s complete maintenance record from its launch in 1971, through three successive owners, all the way to Mickey Ryser. Tens of thousands of dollars’ worth of work: rebuilt seacocks, remounted rudders, new cutlass bearings and exhaust hoses, upgraded electronics and gauges, new holding tanks, water pumps, batteries and generators, right down to a new compressor for the air horn. And that didn’t even get into any of the engine work or replacing the furnishings.

  I put the file on the table.

  “OK,” I said, “you showed me this, why?”

  “Because my father wanted to be sure you saw that before you saw this.”

  She handed me the manila folder. I opened it. It contained Radiance’s registration and all its official paperwork.

  “What does this mean, Jen?”

  She smiled.

  “It means Radiance is yours,” she said. “If you want it, that is. Otherwise, my father’s will states that it should be sold, with the proceeds dispersed among his charities.”

  I didn’t know what to say. So I didn’t say anything.

  “He wanted Radiance to stay in the family. It’s too much boat for me. Plus, I’m more about sailboats,” Jen said. “You’re the closest thing he ever had to a brother, Zack. He was really hoping that you would accept the boat.”

  “I accept,” I said. “I’m overwhelmed, but I accept.”

  “Good,” she said. “Because in that case, there’s one more thing.”

  She got up from the couch and went to a closet. She pulled out the two duffel bags I’d seen on the dock that day back in April.

  “I was a little nervous about bringing all this back into the country, but it went without a hitch,” she said. “Guess I’m now officially a smuggler.”

  “Worse things to be,” I said.

  She plopped the bags down at my feet. An envelope was taped to the top of one of the bags. My name was on it.

  “Open it,” Jen said.

  The handwriting was Mickey’s.


  “Dear Zack-o,

  “Before you start drooling I want you to know something: The money inside these bags isn’t for you. So don’t start feeling too goddam grateful.

  “I want you to take some of it—you decide how much—and give it to Abel Delgado’s wife. Pay off her house or something. She deserves it. Spend some money on her kids. The fact that they don’t have a father is my fault, and I want to make sure they are taken care of.

  “The rest of the money is for Radiance. Treat her right. Keep her in the family. Stay in touch with Jen and take her for a ride on it every now and then, even though she’s a goddam sailor and looks upon Radiance as a stinkpot. Jen’s a good girl, but she’s not all grown-up yet, and she’ll need you from time to time.”

  I looked at Jen.

  She said, “Don’t worry. I read it already. I’m not at all offended.”

  I returned my attention to the note.

  “Radiance is not a cheap date. That day when you asked me what it cost to maintain her? I was lying my ass off. Because upkeep,” Mickey wrote, “really is a bitch.

  “You’ll notice the ceramic urn sitting on the end table by the couch…”

  I stopped reading and looked at the end table. The urn bore an intricate blue and white design, Mexican pottery with a stopper in the top.

  I looked at Jen. She smiled.

  “That’s me inside,” the note went on. “Or what’s left of me anyway. Dust to dust, ashes to ashes, and all that good stuff.

  “What, you thought I wasn’t going to hang around? I’ll be watching, Zack-o, I’ll be watching. But don’t let it creep you out. I won’t pull any weird shit.

  “And if you drop anchor someplace really cool, someplace where the water is blue and the horizon is clear, where there’s good music playing and the moment is magical, then sprinkle a little bit of me off the transom, so I can enjoy it, too.

  “Yer bro, Mickey.”

  This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, organizations, and events portrayed in this novel are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.

  BAJA FLORIDA. Copyright © 2009 by Bob Morris. All rights reserved. Printed in the United States of America. For information, address St. Martin’s Press, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, N.Y. 10010.